


electro

by space_dev (orphan_account)



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe, Depression, Electrokinesis, F/F, Femslash, Force Field Manipulation, High-Functioning Anxiety, Invisibility, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, and they’d both have great-great-great-great-great grandkids before the burn ended, clone that child, like you could raise a child, literally the slowest burn ever, powers, raise that child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-10-31 16:23:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17853041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/space_dev
Summary: Someone’s looking for you.Someone wants to kill you.Someone wants to hold you tight.Someone wants to trap you.





	1. Chapter 1

Alana had been in the car with her family. Her mom, her dad, her older sister Jana. They’d been driving up a mountain road, one of those ones with the wall on the side so you can’t fall off the mountain face, and everything had been normal.

She was just eleven at the time, but she’d be twelve in February, and it was currently November. November 22nd. 

She had earbuds in, and she was starting to doze off to her Christmas playlist on her IPod. Lee Ann Rimes’ Rockin Around the Christmas Tree was playing, and she was clutching her stuffed panda bear, Henrietta Lee Dimitri. Her seatbelt was undone.

 Her mom was at the wheel, the wheel of a 2008 Subaru Outback. Alana was in the backseat, passenger side. Her dad was in the passenger seat ahead of her, and Jana was next to her. 

Alana’s adult colouring book was on the seat between the two of them, as well as three coloured pencils. Crayola, from a brand new box. The shades were Sky Blue, Red Orange, and Aqua Green. On the floor, was her orange and blue backpack, made by Jansport, containing her other pencils, a Cinderella Barbie doll, and three library books. They were Nancy Drew 38: The Mystery of the Fire Dragon, A Wrinkle In Time, and Anna Karenina. 

 Her mom had told her that the book was too big for her, and jokingly compared it to the size of her head, but Alana hadn’t cared. She had it dogeared it on page 423.

 Also on the floor was Jana’s backpack, also Jansport, that was green. It contained a Mulan Barbie, a Snow White Barbie, an Ariel Barbie, and three generic Barbies, named Nicola, Henny, and Mina. One library book, the Babysitters Club, volume 97, Claudia and the Cutest Baby.

The radio was on the station 99.8, a classic rock station, but the song that was playing was one of the few things Alana couldn’t remember, because of her earbuds.

And then.

Out of nowhere, from around a bend, came a runaway truck, on that tiny, two-way, two-lane mountain road. It was a Swift truck. The cargo was unknown to her.

Alana’s mom swerved quickly to avoid the truck, and Alana snapped awake. She held tight to Henrietta Lee Dimitri. Jana had screamed. 

The car had hit the wall, and then, like a ball in a pinball machine, they’d been launched back at the truck. They’d collided, and Alana had been flung out of the windshield. 

She wasn’t sure what part of her body she’d landed on, because once she hit the ground, she’d momentarily blacked out.

When she came to, she discovered that she still had Henrietta Lee Dimitri in her arms, and her earbuds were loosely wrapped around her neck. Her left arm was numb.

She saw the wreckage, and felt her stomach turn. She swallowed quickly, and tried to stand, but was shaking too hard and fell, skinning her knees.

But she saw a phone, just about fifty feet away, a smartphone. The screen was shattered, but maybe, just maybe, it’d work. 

She held Henrietta Lee Dimitri close and carefully crawled to the phone, and pressed the home button.

Somehow, the screen lit up, and she realised it was her mom’s phone, with the lock screen being her and Jana on the swings at a playground, when Jana had been seven, and her, five. 

She tapped in the passcode (9851) and then, when it went to the home screen, tapped the call button, and went to the keypad, carefully tapping in the numbers 9-1-1. She noticed that she left little specks of blood on the screen.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My name is Alana Beck. I was in a car crash. We’re on Pine Mountain Road, in Farland, West Virginia. We hit the wall and then a runaway truck.”

“Okay. Is anyone hurt?”

Alana looked up. She could vaguely see her father’s head in the wreckage. His eyes were closed and there was blood. She couldn’t see anyone else. “I can see my dad’s head, he’s passed out, I think, and he’s all bloody. I can’t see anyone else.”

“How many people were in the car with you?”

“My mom, my dad, and my older sister.” 

“Do you know how many people were in the truck?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“I’m sending ambulances. Are you hurt?” 

“Yes, ma’am. My arm, I skinned my knees trying to walk, and I...”

She felt something warm trickle down her forehead and used a finger to trace up the trail, ending at her temple, finding a lot more blood, all coming from there.

“Alana? Alana? Are you there?”

 “My head.”

 “Are you bleeding from your head?”

“Yes.” 

“Are you lightheaded?”

“Yes.”

“Sleepy?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you can stay awake until the ambulance gets there?”

 “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Do your best, honey.”

Alana stayed on the phone with the operator until the ambulances roared up, and so did a couple of police cars, and a fire truck. 

A lady police officer came up to her, and then shouted for an EMT.

“Are you gonna arrest me?”

The officer looked down at her. “No, honey. We’re gonna get you help. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

That was the last thing Alana remembered.

She’d woken up in the hospital, and a man named Officer Tim told her that her family was dead, and asked for names of relatives.

 She knew that her mom and dad had been only children, their parents were long dead, only one of her grandparents had had a sibling, who was also long dead with no living children or partners, and no great grandparents.

 She spent 11 days in the hospital. She had suffered a concussion, a badly broken left arm (she later learned that her left arm had taken most of the fall, which is what saved her life), two skinned knees, and loosing her family.

After she’d been discharged, she’d been sent to a foster family. The Schafers.

They had six kids already, three older than she, and two toddlers, plus a newborn. The mother was fed up with everything and was cruel to Alana, explicitly stating to her face that she was only bringing her into her house for the money. She was neglected, and often went without meals.

She eventually left the Schafers. She didn’t want to remember being with them.

Next were the ones she couldn’t help but remember.

The McLeans. Just one child, a seven year old. Emily. A kind mother, Leah, a kind father, William.

The problem wasn’t the McLeans.

The problem was that one day, home alone, Alana had put a microwaveable bag of peas into the microwave, shut it, and started it.

Next thing she knew, sparks were flying from her hands, striking the microwave.

Alana stumbled backwards, tripping over Emily’s little red stepstool in the middle of the kitchen, and landed on her bottom, hands still sparking.

Next thing she knew, there was a clear ball around her, and then it disappeared. Her hands yet kept sparking, but petered out once the microwave had finished.

The clear ball came and went. Alana figured out that it must be a force field and it usually came when she was scared or anxious. 

The sparks of electricity? Well, she couldn’t use the microwave anymore. The oven was gas, it was fine, so were the appliances in the laundry room. But she didn’t dare touch Leah’s or William’s computers, or Emily’s iPad. She contented herself with books, schoolwork, and that was all.

Leah and William sent her back, of course. Why would she think that they’d keep her? But at least, they’d never found out about her... abilities? 

Next house was the Smiths. Three cats, four dogs, two kids (well, three, counting her) and two parents. The kids were both in high school, so it wasn’t like she could play with them often. They were pretty chill, though, they played Clue and Monopoly with her every now and then.

 She was thirteen at that point, and she was pretty much left on her own with the Smiths. I mean, she had plenty to eat, and when she got the flu she was cared for, but since the mom was attending college again while also working a full time job, and the father working extra to make ends meet, she was left mostly alone. It was pretty clear that the biggest reason that she was here was for the money, but at least it wasn’t for greediness, and she wasn’t neglected.

At the Smiths, though, something else happened.

One day, walking home from school, she took a shortcut through a deserted alley. In the alley was a threatening-looking man, but Alana couldn’t seem back out, only kept moving forward, hoping he wouldn’t notice her. 

As she was passing him, though, she looked down and figured out that she was invisible. The man had no clue she wasn’t even here. Which was good, yeah, but... she was _invisible_.

It took her a couple blocks to get back to being visible.

The invisibility was a trickier thing. Sparking was at least caused by being near electricity. Which is why she refused to go with the Smith father to his job at the power plant on Take Your Kids To Work Day. Force fields when she was scared or anxious.

And invisibility, yeah, it kinda worked the same as the force fields. Fear or anxiousness, for the most part. But sometimes, it was stupid things. Get startled by the neighbour’s cat? Invisible for twenty minutes. Stressed about a test in English? Invisible, _with_ a force field. The force field came down pretty easily, but the invisibility lasted for as long as she was studying for the test.

She left the Smith house, too.

She went through four other households as she desperately tried to keep up with schoolwork, what with her moving around school districts every five seconds. She was bright, she was in all Honours classes in most schools, but there was always shadows lingering around her.

Classic teenage angst, with a side of high functioning anxiety and some mild to moderate depression.

PTSD, of course, because being the one member of your family to survive a horrific car accident has mental consequences. 

Having powers. Yeah, that was pretty obvious. Another issue with that, it made researching projects... difficult. She was always the only student who didn’t use the Internet... or electronics at all, for that matter, but, I mean, who’s gonna be friends with the weird nerdy girl who doesn’t have parents?

Becoming the point guard on the girl’s basketball team and leading the team to win the state championship also didn’t really help. Made her look like something to be afraid of. Especially when the air crackled around her when she was angry, or she _seemed_ to blink in and out of existence when she was really into a game. 

Luckily, it didn’t get her sent to any government labs. 

Finally, Alana settled down (hopefully) with the Sencen family. They had five snakes, but they were nice people. She attended Hazel Green high and acted like she was just like everyone else. Just a random Joe Schmoe, good grades, biceps, teacher’s pet, community helper, team leader, annoying. 

Because she was just like everyone else, at least as far as anyone but she knew.


	2. Chapter 2

A consequence of having invisibility/force field/electrokinesis and being a foster child was that nobody wanted to look at you.

 

Except teachers. Astounded by the amount of research she could do without Google, they piled more work on her shoulders. She was smart, sure. But all this? Six hours of homework was not how she’d prefer to spend her evenings. Maybe she could read a book and eat some Kraft macaroni and cheese.

 

But one day, someone looked at her. Yes, it was only the librarian, who was one of the few who did look at her, but the difference was that instead of her taking the books Alana handed her and scanning them, she handed Alana a book and a special look in the eye.

 

She took it, a questioning gaze as her return.

 

“I’m Reina. Welcome aboard.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“That’s the initiation and information book for the Society of Unusual Figures.”

 

“What’s that? And why... why on Earth..?”

 

“The book will explain everything, Alana.”

 

Alana left with ten books, one of them being that large book with the purple jacket and gold lettering that shone in the winter sun.

 

She arrived home, resisted the urge to immediately open up the book, and did her homework. When completed, finally, she tentatively picked up the book.

 

The lettering was in a barely legible cursive font, and somewhat faded. It smelled musty and old. She ran a finger across the pages, but something felt odd about them, and she opened it up.

 

There were no pages. It’d appeared to have pages, but it was just a decoy, glued to one side of the cover. It looked to be nothing but the cover, but it was extremely heavy, and the cover thick. Something had to be in it.

 

She ran her fingertips across every edge, looking for a place to slide her nails under and pop open, but it was fully smooth. No latches of any kind, either.

 

She inspected the inner sides of the covers. Fully smooth, but she saw a place where the cover appeared to have worn away a bit. It was grey under that.

 

She touched it, and electricity struck it instantly.

 

She hastily moved back on her bed in surprise, and was afraid she’d destroyed the book.

 

Until she heard the voice of the librarian.

 

“Hello, Alana. I’m Opal. I am one of a few people who knows your real name. I introduced myself as Reina, but that was simply a pseudonym to protect my identity. Opal isn’t my real name either, but it is my superhero name. You are among a very few people who possess powers. And you must join us, to help fight those who use their powers for evil.”

 

The book still looked the same as it did. There were no scorch marks. She might as well have never touched it and nobody would be able to tell the difference.

 

“A new evil is emerging, the Letter Society. An inconspicuous name, but with evil intent. They have an army of young supers whose only goal is to destroy everything they touch. They haven’t yet struck, but it won’t be long.”

 

The book had no visible speakers. No outlet for noise to be coming out of. And nobody was around. Yet, Opal’s voice was clear as a bell and still emitting itself.

 

“This book has been altered to your needs, powers, and specifications. You’ll find everything you need to know about your powers in here, everything you want to know about both Societies- the good one and the bad one- and other things you might find interesting.”

 

As soon as the final words faded away, somehow, actual, real pages emerged from the spine. They flattened out to fit the book and it closed up nicely.

 

“The reading material has been tailor made to cater to your reading speed, and you’ll complete it tonight. Go to the library straight away in the morning, don’t head to class... and you’ll find the family you never knew you needed.”

 

And with that, the recording ended. She kept listening for her voice again, but it never came.

 

You’d imagine Alana was beyond confused. Probably refusing to believe it all, and amazed beyond description, all at once.

 

No. Alana turned on the electric fireplace without even thinking about her powers, and threw the book into it.

 

Watching it burn, and smelling the electronic insides, she was satisfied. She turned and went back upstairs. She was gonna read Little Women, cry over Beth, and forget about all of this.

 

But after she’d grabbed the book from her shelf and plopped back onto her bed, she felt another object bounce from the force.

 

It was the book.

 

She ran downstairs, and the fireplace was off. Nothing was in it but the fake logs and the pilot flame.

 

She ran back up, and even without her striking it with electricity or even touching it, the message began to play again.

 

She opened up the window, pulled out the screen, and threw it into the neighbour’s pool.

 

She turned around, and the book was on her bed.

 

She smashed it with Mr. Schafer’s hammer, ripped apart every page with kitchen scissors and an X-Acto knife, and turned on the boiler on the oven on high and threw it in.

 

The book smacked her in the face as she turned back around.

 

And, to top it all off, she could’ve sworn she saw a black boot with blue swirls, and a “Sorry!” cut off halfway. But she looked again, and nothing was there.

 

Defeated, she tramped back upstairs, plopped on her bed angrily, and opened up the book, before she had one final idea.

 

She set the book on the carpet, and focused on the constant buzz of electricity that was always buried in the back of her brain.

 

She’d never summoned electricity purposefully before. She’d never tried to control her powers, or even understand them.

 

Because she didn’t want this. She didn’t want to be weird. She wanted to be normal and respected and be able to watch TV and look up the Wikipedia page on Sojourner Truth.

 

She wanted a living family, she wanted a normal life with a dog named Roger and to hug someone without being afraid to electrocute them to death.

 

She struck the book with all her being, every ounce of power she could muster. She let the pulse shoot the hair on the back of her neck up and let the electricity ripple through her hands.

 

And the book was still undamaged.

 

A girl with caramel brown hair, wearing black boots with blue swirls, and a suit that looked to be out of a comic book, tights and all, blue with black swirls and a symbol with a seven-pointed star with an arrow protruding from each point, and a matching black mask.

 

“Cat, Regenerate, we have to do this the old fashioned way,” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at Alana, who stumbled backward before tripping over the hammer. Yet, someone caught her.

 

She looked up and saw a girl in a grey mask and yellow and grey suit ensemble, accompanied with her gold eyes. “She could’ve gone for longer, Swirl.”

 

“I’m in charge of this retrieval mission, Cat.”

 

Another girl, this one in a suit in shades of green, appeared. “Let’s just get on with this, Boss is waiting.”

 

“God, I hate it so much when you’re in charge,” the girl holding Alana groaned.

 

She struggled in... Cat’s? arms. “Let me go!” She cried, knowing it was helpless.

 

“Well, Miss Responsible Swirl, mind knocking her out?”

 

“No! No! No!” Alana cried, over and over again, even as Swirl pressed her gloved fingers to her temples and a warm, fuzzy feeling came over her. It felt good, so good. She felt like she was floating through nothingness and it felt amazing.

 

And she was so tired.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> ok so... don’t expect frequent updates?? kaksoajsbskaushahjsjhwjajsjshkaoqisjdjsksk i have several fics i need to work on and this isn’t exactly at the top of the list.


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